Thursday, July 23, 2009

One product of my recent online interview with Wolfgang Puck was being given his pizza dough recipe to publish on my American Food site on About.com. I don't think this recipe is any kind of secret, and I'm sure it's been published many times, but I had never personally tried it, so I decided to do this recipe video and check out this iconic dough for myself.

As I read the recipe, I noticed the times were very short for the rising and proofing. I was a little suspicious, but hey, he's Wolfgang Puck and I'm not. I believe the honey in the dough, which feeds the yeast (sugar is to yeast, as anonymity is to bravery online), as well as the very warm water both contributed to the yeasts very rapid growth.

In just 35 minutes the dough had doubled beautifully -- it was soft, supple, and very subtly scented with honey. As you'll see in the video, this is a very quick and easy pizza dough recipe, and I was very happy with the results. I think this Wolfgang Puck guy may have a future.

Even though I already have a couple pizza dough recipes that I love and use (both posted online), you never want to get to a point in your cooking where you think you've found the "best" recipe for something, and not try other variations. This is the fatal flaw of many cooks and chefs.

Thanks to Wolfgang Puck for his recipe, and I hope you all give this a try. Enjoy!

121 comments:

I've tried your no knead pizza dough recipe, and it was awesome! I made pizza just yesterday trying Reinhart's dough recipe, and it was awesome! So, I certainly must try Puck's recipe as it looks so yummy. I try so many new recipes whilst searching for the best one, so I suppose I'm guilty Chef John:)

"Even though I already have a couple pizza dough recipes that I love and use (both posted online), you never want to get to a point in your cooking where you think you've found the "best" recipe for something, and not try other variations. This is the fatal flaw of many cooks and chefs."

This is so, so true, and so friggin humble and honest and true that it, really, almost moves me to tears, especially at this time of the night.

Keep on doing what you're doing, you're being followed in amazement every single day of my life.

I love your videos! They are easy to follow and who can resist your sarcastic sense of humor. :)

My first attempt at this recipe and it came out great. My finished product didn't rise as much as the pie in your video, but I'm trying again tonight and we'll see how it goes.

I've been meaning to ask --

1) Instead of 4 small pizza's can you do one large with this recipe? Would the cooking time change?

2) Do you have a method for getting the pizza in/out of the oven? I don't have a peel but do have a stone. It was a little touch and go there as I tried to get the flimsy pizza on to the piping hot stone. I've read about prebaking the crust for several minutes before adding the topping.

This was pretty similar to my standard recipe, but you got me in the mood for pizza so I tried it out. Couldn't taste the honey in the finished product, but it was quite good. I like cooking pizza on an overturned rocket hot cast iron pan, sort of a poor-man's pizza stone. Works really well, you get an authentic charred bottom crust.

Hi Chef. Tried this one today. Had just 1.5 cups of flour at home and was too lazy to get some (from across the road) so I made up with 1.5 c of oat flour. Came out crisper than usual but pretty good nevertheless. Besides oat is healthy ( will scrub out that cheese from the system , considering that I refused to walk across the road..... :-)Also used a foil lined tray to bake the pizza ( dont know if thats a crime in pizza land but it worked for me...do get back to me on that), sprinkled with semolina (we call it "rava" ) since corn meal is not easily available in India. Works well .....and also serves to answer an earlier Q from a reader, asking what is a good substitute for sprinkled cornmeal.On the whole , a successful event....but when the teacher is of your calibre, it would be very hard to get it wrong !!!Thanks for your recipe. You are simply amazing....now where have I said that before ? :-)

L.J. here wanting to say how much I enjoy your videos. Today I tried the Puck's pizza dough recipe and loved it. Although the recipe calls for 3 cups of flour, I only used two cups. The first attempt with using the 3 cups caused my dough to be very dry, dense, and unexpandable. I wonder why? When I used the 2 cups the crust came out wonderfully crispy and tender. I can't wait to experiment with different toppings. My next recipe to try is your boston cream pie. :)

Love your blog! Tried Wolfgang's pizza dough today and it was excellent! This recipe made one x-large pizza for me. I've tried several recipes but I've decided this is my favorite so far. I look forward to trying the others listed on your site. I absolutely love your method of cooking the pizza on the bottom of the oven -genius! It made the most wonderful crispy/chewy crust that I had not been able to achieve in the past. I'll use this method from now on. Thank you! --Melissa

I am a beginner cook and I love your youtube videos, especially all of your commentary on exactly how to do everything. I made this pizza recipe and it was awesome! Thank you for giving me more confidence in the kitchen and for making recipes that are clearly explained and not intimidating while still being top notch quality food :) I also made the califlower soup with the blue cheese fritters and this was also excellent!

The dough is really great. In about a hour is ready and really grows in the eyes.

I prefer super thin pizzas, so for me it is amount for two quite large ones. In 13 minutes at 480F its ready in the middle, but littlebit too baked at the edges (about 0.6 inch). Is it a problem of time or the temperature? (it's really crusty like a cracker)

I kind of used 2 tbsp yeast without knowing exact how much it should be for 1 package = 2 1/4 tsp. However, it turned out very good. I recommend this recipe to anyone who loves making pizza. It's easy and delicious. My ten-year-old made it with me.

I've made this recipe about 5 times now (always a double recipe), and I LOVE IT SO MUCH! I wanted to suggest others to try this recipe with the leftover dough: http://savoryseasonings.blogspot.com/2009/04/godfathers-streusel-dessert-pizza.html The dough is PERFECT for the dessert pizza! Thank you Chef John!

I alway bake my pizza on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper. You won't need the cornmeal and the pizza slides right off when done. Gonna try this recipe for dough next time I make pizza, sounds good.

I just made the Pizza, and let me tell you it was AMAZING, i di not have honey though so i used sugar but still it tuned out beautiful, its the firt time i make pizza, my wife and all my family were shocked lool, thank you soooooo much all your food is great.

I'm not going to lie. I was a lil worried about the dough by the time i got all 3 cups of flower together. but honestly, this came out pretty damn good. The sauce came out awesome used the san marzons minus the seeds and herbs and oregano.......very nice!

Well, I have to say this is my first time making pizza! It turned out well. I tried making the thick crust first with toppings of tomato sauce and cheddar cheese. Turn out quite good but abit tasteless so on that day I made the crust thinner and more sauce with cheddar cheese and some ham. Woahh!!! I'm amazed! Thank you Chef John!!! :)

First of all I would like to thank you for your awesome recipes, I have tried so many of them and they have all been great successes for our family.

One of my favorite recipes is the Wolfgang Puck's pizza dough, but I have a slight problem when preparing it myself. I always end up using only about 2 - 2½ cups of flour on it, and when I set the dough aside to rest, the surface starts to break. What am I doing wrong here ?

I mean, when I set the dough aside to rest for 30-40minutes, then I turn it on my floured cutting board and start to pat it down, it isn't moist and slightly sticky any longer, but the surface has actually began to crack, like its sort of dry all of a sudden.

Thank's a heap for the video and the written instruction at; http://americanfood.about.com/od/pizzaandbreads/r/Wolfgang_Puck_Pizza.htm

This was my first time at making dough, and I realize that I was lucky to find your information and Chef Pucks recipe. I imagine lots of people have had hard times with other recipes. This was a total success for me. I used Paul Newman's Sockarooni Spaghetti sauce and 1-1/2 link of Hillshire Farms Hot-Links sliced up and some pepperjack cheese sliced crumbled up. So lots of sauce choices and links and brackwurst etc to choose from.

Affordable round meals are very welcome in these economic times.

I too had a little problem with the second warming, 30 minutes in a turned off heated oven. I used a wet towel laid directly over the four balls as seen in the video and the towels stuck to the balls so I had to peel the dough away and lost some. No big deal but I am doing something wrong. (I did use the full three cups of flour.)

Chef John - thank you so much for sharing this wonderful recipe and finally teaching me how to make pizza that doesn't have a "cracker" crust. Made some tonight (with red pepper flakes too, yum!) and they turned out beautifully.

I love, love, love your site. I'm 45 years old and finally took an interest in cooking when I had my daughter 3 years ago (yeah, old bag Mom). Seriously, the best thing I ever made for dinner was reservations. I came upon your site looking for a pizza dough recipe and haven't looked back.

Tonight I made your pate brisee crust which I hope to turn into butter tarts tomorrow (it's a Canuck thing).

Your videos are a joy and a laugh to watch - can't thank you enough for your inspiration.

found your website by random while searching for pizza dough recipes. This turned out GREAT and it's my first time attempting to bake with yeast ever! I also used your pizza sauce recipes AND granola... everything was excellent. THANK YOU! will definitely be trying more other ones!

I noticed at the end that you said this recipe works great if you like a thinner pizza. I happen to enjoy these. I was wondering if there is any adjustment to cooking time to be made if I make it thin crust?

Salutations! I love your recipes, especially your pizzas. I've made them before but if I don't want to eat or prepare the dough the day of, what can I do? What I mean is, can I prepare the dough beforehand (leave it in the oven for more than 20min)? Or freeze it?

I've used this recipe twice now, although the first time I hardly got any rise from the dough at all. Then I remembered that being from the UK, the protein content of our flour is much lower than that in the US, so the second time I made this I used Strong Bread flour instead. I got much better results, I really do like the crust you get from it.

Just wanted to say that I love your recipes and I just tried this one and am waiting to see the results when I put the dough to the oven. But I have a question - if i were to use instant yeast instead of dry active yeast, what are the steps that would be changed / impacted? Would I skip the first hydration step?

I made this for dinner tonight. What a difference a great dough makes. My proof, and resting times were a bit long as I got busy with chores. Fabulous flavor nonetheless. I made mine with thai peanut sauce, cooked chicken, shrimp and a few veggies. Hubby's with a bit of fresh basil, and cheese only. Both pizzas were the best!

Absolutely amazing recipe and technique! I haven't actually made homemade pizza before, ever, and this turned out absolutely amazing.

Used your pizza sauce recipe as well, although I modified it a bit as I'm not fond of anchovies, and didn't have any fresh oregano at home. So instead I used some fresh basil and dried oregano, also added some onions and it was delicious.

For the pizza itself, I put on some local cheese, parmigiano, half-circles of red onions, blobs of pesto and fried white button mushrooms (canned, unfortunately). Then I baked it at the bottom of the oven, took it out and added an egg in the center, along with a bit more cheese.After about 5 minutes I took it out and added a lot of lettuce and some spicy paprika sauce I'd thrown together and let it heat up while the oven was off for a few minutes.It turned out absolutely delicious, probably one of the best pizzas I've had in my life, maybe bar.. one.

the first time I find you was when I was looking up anything that had to do with Dinner Rolls I had never made them by myself, my gma was the one that showed me how to cook and she'd make it and i'd help, so I was thinking I wanted to do it for myself for the first time will I looked and looked and looked and then I find Rosemary Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls Recipe by Chef John and I had seen your video and I just loved it and how you talked and how you said some funny stuff in it, I did make the Rosemary Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls, about 2 to 3 times they where not that bad, the Rosemary was a lil much for me but I did like them, then i looked on food wishes to see what there was and i seen you had a lot of pizza recipes and i looked at a lot of them and stopped looking when i get to Wolfgang Puck's Pizza Dough recipe i tried it and loved it, i have made it maybe 10 or more times in some months, even my gma liked it a lot, using that some recipe i have been making it in to a P'ZONE and it is really good also, the next thing i am going to try is Buttermilk Fried Chicken i am excited to try this as will, ty for all the really good looking and just over all good recipes, can't wait to see more and try them out XD

I tried this dough a couple of times and it turned out great for the most part. The inner crust which is covered in the sauce is nice and chewy but the outer crust is very hard. I'm making a thin to medium thickness dough with the finger technique shown. Any suggestions as to how to make the outer crust less hard. I'm using the olive oil on the dough and it stays in the over for a total 15mins as suggested, thanks.

No there's not! If you watch and listen it's 1/4 cup at the beginning, and then 3/4 cup for a total of 1 cup. Of course with any dough, you have to adjust the flour as you add b/c of your conditions. Dry dough comes from people over packing and using too much flour, or adding it all at once.

I feel sheepish for asking, especially five years after the recipe has been posted. But if I goofed and added the salt initially with the yeast and 105* water, does the salt kill the yeast activity??

I'm not really a baker, but I tried very hard to do everything as instructed with the dough, including non-chlorinated water - but I fooked up that one thing with adding the salt with the yeast, before the yeast got to bathe for ten minutes.

It turned out sorta, but not as puffy as it should have - flat I call it.

Chef John, your recips are infallable. I love this one. I know it belongs to Wolfgang, but your video makes it approachable. Also, I usually watch your videos with headphones in and it confuses my husband, because he can see what I am watching, but doesn't understand why I keep laughing. Keep up the good work!